Ralph Asher Alpher

Ralph Asher Alpher ( born February 3, 1921 in Washington, DC; † August 12, 2007 in Austin, Texas) was an American theoretical physicist and cosmologist.

Life

In 1948 he wrote his dissertation on the Big Bang theory, in which he provided an explanation for the origin of elementary particles and the light elements hydrogen and helium during the cooling phase after the Big Bang and the cosmic background radiation predicted. The work was published, including the name of his professor George Gamow and Hans Bethe, who was actually unconcerned, based on the first three letters of the Greek alphabet (alpha, beta, gamma ) as the Alpher - Bethe- Gamow theory.

Although the work contained groundbreaking new findings that positive reactions were muted. Only In 1964 Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson by radio-astronomical investigations with the discovery of the background radiation of the proof of his theory. This recognition was awarded the Nobel Prize, but the award went only to the researchers who provided the practical proof of the theory, which Alpher felt as injustice long.

Alpher was from 1987 to 2004 professor at Union College in Schenectady and Director of the Dudley Observatory, both in the state of New York.

2005 Alpher was awarded the National Medal of Science.